BLANKENSHIP TRIAL:
• A jury finds former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship guilty on a misdemeanor charge of violating coal mine safety violations, but not guilty on two felony counts. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• Relatives of coal miners killed in the 2010 West Virginia coal mine explosion that prompted the trial express mixed emotions about the single misdemeanor verdict. (Charleston Gazette-Mail) 
A juror recounts how the verdict was reached. (WSAZ)
• Blankenship faces up to one year in prison. (Climate Progress)

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SOLAR:
• Mississippi strikes a middle ground in setting credits for excess power generated by solar systems. (Associated Press)
• Residents of Virginia’s Eastern Shore hear details about a second large solar farm to be built there next year. (Delmarva Daily  Times)

WIND: The company proposing to build 25 wind turbines in western Virginia sets an open house to gain public support. (The Roanoke Times)

COAL ASH:
• North Carolina issues the first permit to Duke Energy to drain coal ash ponds at a shuttered power plant near Wilmington. (WRAL)
• A bureaucratic logjam could prevent Duke Energy from meeting a 2019 deadline for closing coal ash ponds at the site of the massive 2014 Dan River ash spill in North Carolina. (Greensboro News & Record)
• While it awaits regulatory approval, Duke Energy begins removing contaminated soil from the Dan River coal ash site and transporting it to a landfill in Virginia. (Greensboro News & Record)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A bill set for Kentucky’s 2016 legislative session would charge EV owners an annual fee to offset the gasoline tax they don’t pay. (Kentucky Forward)

CLIMATE: Atlanta’s Mayor Kasim Reed tells a meeting at the Paris climate talks how cities are coping with global warming. (WABE Public Radio)

COAL:
• Alpha Natural Resources slates several additional West Virginia and Kentucky coal mines for closure in its plan to emerge from bankruptcy. (Platts)
• The Kemper coal-gasification power plant in Mississippi is becoming a monument to an unfilled promise of carbon-capture technology. (Associated Press)
• Federal mine safety officials tout new rules for monitoring coal dust which causes black lung disease. (Associated Press)

POLICY: A south Florida House member tries to cast climate change as an economic and commerce conversation to woo skeptics in the state’s capital. (WLRN Public Radio)

UTILITIES:
• Shareholders approve the sale of Tampa Electric’s parent company to a Nova Scotia-based firm. (Tampa Bay Business Journal)
• More than 4,000 Duke Energy customers could be affected by the closure of a company that processes rebates and collects defunct refrigerators. (The Raleigh News & Observer)
• Regulators authorize the East Kentucky Power Cooperative to buy three natural gas-fueled generators to make up for the retirement of a coal-fired plant. (Louisville Courier-Journal)

OIL & GAS: The latest federal data show West Virginia has the fourth most proven natural gas reserves in the U.S., behind Texas, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. (The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register)

COMMENTARY: Virginia has issued two woefully inadequate draft permits that would allow Dominion Virginia Power to dump coal ash wastewater into the state’s waterways. (Southern Environmental Law Center)

Jim Pierobon

Jim Pierobon, a policy, marketing and social media strategist, was a founding contributor to Southeast Energy News. He passed away after a long battle with pancreatic cancer in 2018.

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